Answer: No, which Elon Musk acknowledged with a laugh after Donald Trump posed the question. The much-anticipated Twitter/X interview unfolded last night more like an armchair conversation between the former president and the world's wealthiest man. Musk seemed happy to chat up Trump rather than prepare a list of questions, and Trump filled the gaps with his usual brand of extemporaneous argument.

"Musk held a Trump rally," one media outlet sniffed. Another got closer to the truth of it, which we'll get to in a moment. However, Trump hit on the salient point and the most direct contrast between the two tickets in this short clip:

TRUMP: "Kamala wouldn't have this conversation. She can't! Because she's not smart...Biden...? He would've given up in the first half of a question...He would've said where am I? Where am I going?" pic.twitter.com/BMgXdCftUZ

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 13, 2024

Trump continued the thought on Biden, which raised a potential issue ... but failed to capitalize on it:

Donald Trump just TORCHED Joe Biden and Kamala Harris 🔥

"Biden is close to vegetable stage...I look at him today on the beach...The guy could barely walk...He can't lift the chair! The chair weight about three ounces! It's meant for children and old people...!

ELON: "Clearly… pic.twitter.com/HjREwAARP5

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 13, 2024

"Clearly, we don't have a president," Musk observed, and that's pretty clear to the rest of the country at this stage, too. Unfortunately, Trump and Musk didn't follow up on that, because the logical progression from that is to ask two key questions. First, who is exercising the power of the presidency when Biden clearly lacks the capacity? And two: Who knew about this and covered it up until the debate took place?

"Kamala Harris" may not be the answer to the first question -- in fact, I rather doubt it is -- but she's certainly part of the answer to the second question. The Democrat Party just removed a duly-elected nominee from the ticket and appointed his replacement, something that has never been done in the primary-elections era in the US. And they didn't do it because of polling. Voters may not be thinking through those implications, and they won't unless Republicans make it an issue and get voters to start demanding answers.

To the larger point, though, not only is Harris not doing free-form public conversations, she's not talking at all. She's hiding from reporters, at least on the record, and up to now the press has let her off the hook. Trump chooses to engage, anywhere and everywhere, sometimes without the requisite discipline to stay on message. That seems to have been the case here too, but the informality of this conversation gives it less risk, even if it turned into what Variety accurately called a "marathon bull session":

Once the conversation got going, the president largely stuck to familiar themes, while Musk offered fulsome praise when he could get a word in.

The two businessmen had an awkward rapport. Trump praised Musk’s electric cars — “incredible” — and his move to fire workers who were involved in union activity.

“You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk away. I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike. And you say, ‘That’s OK. You’re all gone. You’re all gone. So every one of you is gone.’ And you are the greatest.”

Perhaps it was "awkward," but it still worked for both men and their interests. Now ask why it wouldn't work for Harris and her interests to have this kind of "bull session" in public, and the contrast and the lesson becomes clear. Trump's right in that Harris simply can't do anything like this without getting lost in the conversation, especially if it's about policy. She gets too tangled up in her word salads and defense-mechanism laughter to remain coherent -- which is why the Democrats that anointed her as the nominee are doing their level best to keep her out of situations where she has to speak extemporaneously. 

We'll have a little more still from this conversation, but for now I'll leave you with Bill Whittle's first video about how to beat Kamala Harris, which I had in the Headlines yesterday as well. He makes the same point, only more comprehensively.